2 men face charges after West Side heroin overdoses

Charges have been filed against two men who may be connected to a series of heroin overdoses that left four people dead last week on the West Side.

While the charges filed against them are not directly related to the batch of fentanyl-tainted heroin that caused at least 17 overdoses since April 23, police said Anthony Robinson and Douglas Tate may be connected to the case.

Robinson, 49, is charged with six felony drug offenses, including manufacture or delivery of heroin and possession of a controlled substance, according to Chicago police and Cook County court records.

Robinson allegedly sold heroin to an undercover officers in three incidents, police said. He was allegedly found with a several bags containing suspected heroin and crack cocaine, police said. He was arrested at 10:47 a.m. April 24 in the 3900 block of West Division Street in Humboldt Park, according to police arrest records.

He appeared in court on Thursday before Judge Arthur Wesley Willis and has since been released on a cashless bond, according to court records. His next court date was set for May 13.

Tate, 47, is charged with simple assault for allegedly threatening someone by saying, “We’re going to deal with you” in connection with the rash of overdoses. Tate, of East Garfield Park, was released after posting a $1,200 bail.

Last week, at least 17 people suffered drug overdoses, four of them fatal, after a batch of tainted heroin was sold in the East Garfield Park neighborhood. Fentanyl, a painkiller 30 to 50 times as powerful as heroin, was mixed in with the heroin, among other substances, the Drug Enforcement Administration said.

Reports of the overdoses started about 9:40 a.m. April 23. Callers reported a silver-colored car selling drugs in the area, police said.

A 50-year-old man was found dead over an overdose early that morning on Homan Avenue, authorities said. The man’s mother found him in the living room slumped backward in front of a sofa. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“You tell him constantly … to what effect?” his mother said. “He was 50 years old and there was nothing I could do about it.”

A couple blocks away, a 49-year-old man died of an apparent overdose that evening in an apartment in the 600 block of North Drake. In West Garfield Park, a 34-year-old man died of an apparent overdose in a car in the 4500 block of West Madison. On the Northwest Side, a 47-year-old died in the 5300 block of North East River Road.

Autopsy results for the men were pending toxicology reports, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

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